Effect of housing, initial weight and season on feedlot performance of steers in Iowa

Feedlot information, submitted by Iowa cattle producers to the Iowa State University Feedlot Performance and Cost Monitoring Program, was examined to determine the effects of housing, initial weight and season interactions on beef steer performance. Feedlot information, consisting of 1225 pens of steers, contained information including starting and ending dates, cattle per pen, sex, housing type, days on feed, initial and sale weights, feed efficiency, proportion of concentrate in diets, average daily gain (ADG) and certain economic variables. Starting date on feed was assigned to seasons and, since the steers were fed an average for 160 days, an overlapping of seasons occurred. Thus, cattle started in feedlots in spring, autumn, summer and winter were finished in summer, spring, autumn and spring, respectively. Cattle started in spring, autumn, summer and winter were exposed to hot, cold and warm portions of the year, respectively, and were classified as hot, cold and warm season cattle. Cattle housed in open lots with overhead shelter had higher ADG than those housed in confinement and in open lots in the warm season. In general, cattle in confinement had lower daily dry matter intake (DDMI) than those housed in open lots and open lots with overhead shelter, regardless of season. Light cattle had higher ADG in the hot season, whereas, heavy cattle had higher ADG in the cold season. Heavy cattle housed in confinement had lower ADG than those housed in open lots with overhead shelter and in open lots. Heavy cattle were less efficient than light and intermediate weight cattle regardless of housing system. These results indicate that the time of year cattle are started on feed and selection of cattle with starting weights most adaptable to the housing system provided, may contribute to improved production efficiency. South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 35(4) 2005: 282-29

A single exercise session improves side-effects of chemotherapy in women with breast cancer : an observational study

Background: To measure changes in four common chemotherapy related side-effects (low energy, stress, nausea and pain) immediately after a single exercise session within the first week after treatment. Methods: Thirty-eight patients with chemotherapy-treated breast cancer, participating in a multi-centre randomised controlled study, the Physical Training and Cancer study (Phys-Can) were included in this sub-study. The Phys-Can intervention included endurance and resistance training. Before and after a single training session (endurance or resistance) within the first week of chemotherapy, energy and stress were measured with the Stress-Energy Questionnaire during Leisure Time, and nausea and pain were assessed using a Visual Analog Scale 0-10. Paired t-tests were performed to analyse the changes, and linear regression was used to analyse associations with potential predictors. Results: Thirty-eight participants performed 26 endurance training sessions and 31 resistance training sessions in the first week after chemotherapy. Energy and nausea improved significantly after endurance training, and energy, stress and nausea improved significantly after resistance training. Energy increased (p = 0.03 and 0.001) and nausea decreased (p = 0.006 and 0.034) immediately after a single session of endurance or resistance training, and stress decreased (p = 0.014) after resistance exercise. Conclusions: Both endurance and resistance training were followed by an immediate improvement of common chemotherapy-related side-effects in patients with breast cancer. Patients should be encouraged to exercise even if they suffer from fatigue or nausea during chemotherapy

Mapping hospice patients' perception and verbal communication of end-of-life needs: an exploratory mixed methods inquiry

Abstract Background Comprehensive "Total Pain" assessments of patients' end-of-life needs are critical for providing improved patient-clinician communication, assessing needs, and offering high quality palliative care. However, patients' needs-based research methodologies and findings remain highly diverse with their lack of consensus preventing optimum needs assessments and care planning. Mixed-methods is an underused yet robust "patient-based" approach for reported lived experiences to map both the incidence and prevalence of what patients perceive as important end of life needs. Methods Findings often include methodological artifacts and their own selection bias. Moving beyond diverse findings therefore requires revisiting methodological choices. A mixed methods research cross-sectional design is therefore used to reduce limitations inherent in both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Audio-taped phenomenological "thinking aloud" interviews of a purposive sample of 30 hospice patients are used to identify their vocabulary for communicating perceptions of end-of-life needs. Grounded theory procedures assisted by QSR-NVivo software is then used for discovering domains of needs embedded in the interview narratives. Summary findings are translated into quantified format for presentation and analytical purposes. Results Findings from this mixed-methods feasibility study indicate patients' narratives represent 7 core domains of end-of-life needs. These are (1) time, (2) social, (3) physiological, (4) death and dying, (5) safety, (6) spirituality, (7) change & adaptation. The prevalence, rather than just the occurrence, of patients' reported needs provides further insight into their relative importance. Conclusion Patients' perceptions of end-of-life needs are multidimensional, often ambiguous and uncertain. Mixed methodology appears to hold considerable promise for unpacking both the occurrence and prevalence of cognitive structures represented by verbal encoding that constitute patients' narratives. Communication is a key currency for delivering optimal palliative care. Therefore understanding the domains of needs that emerge from patient-based vocabularies indicate potential for: (1) developing more comprehensive clinical-patient needs assessment tools; (2) improved patient-clinician communication; and (3) moving toward a theoretical model of human needs that can emerge at the end of life.</p